


Shhhhhhh!

by Broadripple



Series: Ghost wrangling AU [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), M/M, Paranormal Investigators, Reference to suspected suicide, mention of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 04:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11592582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broadripple/pseuds/Broadripple
Summary: Forget sometimes they come back, for them it was more like sometimes they don’t shut up. He got that it must be boring not to have anyone to talk to for however long it had been since she died, but seriously, she really needed to put a sock in it and just head into the light already.





	Shhhhhhh!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SusanConstant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanConstant/gifts).



> In October 2016 I took part in the Halloween Hockey flash fic exchange and this is an additional fic inspired by Susanconstant's prompts. Sorry, it has taken forever to write and I think it might have ended up pretty different than what you wanted.
> 
> The prompt was "Dared to spend night in haunted house or other spooky place", I took it to mean literally a house which is haunted and ended up googling a list of haunted locations in Denver. On that list was the Mollie Brown House and this is what happened...

The drive had taken way longer than planned, the traffic had been hellish.  Tyson had no clue why any city would dig up that many of their roads at once, or why anyone thought that beeping their horn was going to help.  So the sun was already setting as he parked the van behind Gabe’s car.  

EJ had bitched about his driving most of the trip, either he was driving like an old lady or a crazy person.  It’d been such drag listening to him that it was a relief to get out of the van and start unloading their gear.  Between that and the car horns his head was pounding.

Gabe was stood on the steps turning his full charm onto the museum director.  Nate had his back, giving her his best sweet young man act. The museum director seemed a few years too young to get grandmotherly over Nate, but she was certainly nodding along every time Gabe spoke. Tyson felt for her, Gabe at full blast could be a lot to deal with.

The museum was an old house, with weird lion statues on the wall. It totally looked like the kind of place a ghost would hang out, so it was maybe 50/50 that this job was going to be a total bust. People just expected this kind of place to be haunted. He’d seen people get legit offended when they didn’t find anything on this kind of gig.

He caught pieces of what the director was saying as he carried the video, the EMF meters, and the thermometers into the house.  She was totally into telling Gabe all about the place.  Whether that was due to her pride in the place or Gabe’s pretty eyes he didn’t know.

She did sound proud when she was talking about their haunting though, he caught, “Smell of smoke...piano...tea-set” as he passed by.  He was pretty sure now she would be the kind of person to chase them down a driveway shouting if they didn’t find anything.

Her tone had changed as he headed by them with the box with the EMF meters, worried and like she didn’t want to talk about this bit at all.  “Interfering in the building work..” Tyson paused to listen. “The contractor wouldn’t come back, and now they won’t go into the garret alone. We’re falling behind schedule.”

He put the box with the others, and stepped back outside to watch.  Gabe smoothly reassured her and talked her into her car, and out of their hair. On his bad days Tyson wondered if he was as obvious about dealing with Gabe on a charm offensive as she’d been.  He at least knew it was fake.

Nate turned back before Gabe and rolled his eyes at him, Tyson wasn’t sure if it was at Gabe’s act or catching him watching it.  Nate and him had been assigned to this team at the same time, even though Nate had still really been a kid.  Tyson had been training for years, mostly non-field work assignments, only helping out with field work for short times.  Nate was too talented for that, they threw  him in at the deep end right from the get go.

 Nate and him spending like 90% of their time together ever since didn’t stop Nate giving him a hard time about Gabe. It was only the one time he’d drunkenly rambled about Gabe’s hair, it’d been over a year ago. Nate should totally let it go already. And Gabe should stop getting hair cuts.  It was totally normal to tell someone their hair looked good after they’d had it cut, whatever Nate said.

The four of them headed inside and gathered in the kitchen. It might be old and weird, but at least it didn’t smell like a museum as much in there. EJ had complained that the whole place smelled like ‘Dead People’s stuff.’ He always did on this kind of job.

Someone had done the research before they came and Gabe spread out a plan of the house on the scuffed up surface of the big table. Gabe filled them in on what more he’d learned, “So, this was the house of a woman most famous for not dying on the Titanic.”

Tyson had known that already, it’d obviously been why they got the job. Nate had all that Titanic ghost wrangling practise, someone must have reckoned he’d be good for a not quite Titanic ghost.

Gabe dug this part, and it was hard not to enjoy watching someone do what they loved. So Tyson watched, and listened to him.

“They have been collecting items known to have belonged to her for a number of years and restoring the house to how it looked when she lived here.  So that’s probably why her spirit has turned up- if it is her. They assume the pipe smoke smell in the basement is her estranged husband, as he never got to smoke inside when he was alive.”

Ok, so maybe Tyson dug this part too. It meant he had every excuse to look at Gabe, closely, while he was doing stuff that he made look totally hot, like taking a sip from a bottle of water, pointing, and breathing. Nate couldn’t bug him about paying attention to Gabe’s briefings.

“It’s all fairly standard stuff, cold spots, footsteps, the sound of the piano playing  when the place is empty, and the tea-set pieces moving overnight.  I think they were pretty happy with their haunting, you know, makes the place cooler. But then they started to do some work to restore the attic and garret space,  so they can make an exhibition on the servants .  Someone or something does not like the idea at all.  Tools kept being moved and work undone, which was annoying. Something went down with one of the contractors, and they called us because the work is now behind schedule.”

EJ snorted, “Nothing pisses a ghost off like remodelling work.”

Tyson zoned out while Gabe went over their assigned rooms, he already knew he had the bedroom; the sunroom and the parlour.  Gabe did have really nice hands. He was totally into the pointing thing today, jabbing at at the floor plan, like EJ might have forgotten the half hour they’d spent earlier agreeing he was the best person to set up in the garret.

Nate had started shifting from foot to foot a good five minutes before Gabe stopped talking. Nate was always eager to get started, perhaps he didn’t enjoy Gabe’s briefings as much, or maybe he just wasn’t wondering how to ask Gabe if he’d got regular manicures.

 

***

 

With as much as he’d seen on the job the bedroom shouldn’t have given him the creeps as bad as it did.  The green color was oppressive and the way they had recreated the room made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

The bed was made up with a quilt that had belonged to Mollie Brown and a dress was laid on the bed as if someone was about to come in and change. Maybe it wasn’t so bad during the day when it was full of visitors but now, it felt like at any second someone would come in and berate him for being in a lady’s bedroom uninvited. He felt like he was being watched the whole time it took to connect up the gear.  

The sunroom was better, although the floor kept creaking.  His equipment showed nothing, and EJ was still in the house, so it had to be the floorboards contracting after the heat of the day.  It did sound like footsteps, and he got why people thought it was something spooky, but for him it was way better in here than that bedroom.

Tyson headed down the dark panelled stairs to the parlour. Maybe they didn’t look so gloomy before electric lights, or people just had really different ideas of what made a good house.  Personally, he preferred open plan to wood panel, and windows that let in light rather than stained glass.

Gabe was finishing setting up in the entrance hall, EJ hanging around by him. Tyson suspected if this had been his assignment he wouldn’t have been able to resist setting up the camera on one of the statue things. He was never sure if it was still a statue if it was made out of wood, or if it was called something else then. Either way, it was not a look he’d go for as the first bit of a house people saw - well maybe for Halloween.

“I’m going to head to the basement, and set up down there.” Gabe pointed to the door hidden behind one of the statues.

EJ nodded, “Ah, the basement, least likely space to be haunted, most likely to be reported.” He looked over at Tyson, “I set up what I could, the garret is kind of a mess, a lot of tools left and some half finished work. I don’t think these are great contractors.  I’d be pissed off too if I was a ghost and they were working on my place ”

Tyson shrugged, “Renovations are messy, that’s life.”

Gabe laughed at him, from by the door. “Really, Tys? That’s life? Not even that’s the afterlife?  You need to try harder, you’re slipping, man.”

EJ grinned big showing the gap where his teeth should be. “I am going to take off then, I gotta see a man about a horse." EJ was repellent to spirits, which came in handy, but it meant that he had to leave before anything exciting would happen.

“We know you are going to the bookies. Gabe, tell him we all know he’s going to the bookies.”

Gabe just grinned and headed downstairs. “Tell Nate you are heading out before you go.”

EJ ruffled Tyson’s hair, “I won’t be far, and I have my phone.”

They were here with permission, so hopefully, tonight they would not need a getaway driver. Nothing they had heard about this place made Tyson think they were going to need the cavalry. But the times that EJ had bailed them out of hairy situations still made Tyson glad he was around if they needed him.

Tyson set up in the parlour and synchronized all the equipment to his tablet. None of the rooms were showing any activity, yet.  

He couldn’t resist poking about at the stuff in the room. He wondered where some of it had even come from. But he sure was glad that none of the reports of ghostly activity talked about the rug in this room coming to life. He didn’t want to have to deal with a pissed off ghostly polar bear.

 

**

 

Waiting was dull. They had checked in with each other after an hour, and spent five minutes in the kitchen discussing the grand total of nothing that had happened so far.

When he was a kid, growing up listening to his Dad and the guys’ stories about the job he never expected it to be this boring. Or that when something happened half the time he’d just want it to stop. Not that he talked about that part. His Dad sure never did.

Once, in a dingy motel in Montana, he’d admitted he sometimes wondered how things would have gone if his Dad had worked a normal job. Maybe he would have grown up to be an insurance salesman or something like that.

Gabe had told him he was way too shifty looking to be a salesman. But Tyson totally got him back by saying that he could never have been a fireman because his head was too big for any helmet to fit.

Nate told them all about how he would totally have wanted to be a fireman, if it wasn’t for all the climbing ladders he would have needed to do.  It was one of his best memories of time spent with Gabe, pretending that it was Nate’s fear of heights that had stopped him achieving that ambition. Because Nate never had a chance at a normal life, not with how much spirits liked him - even when he was a kid. EJ hadn’t either, where he grew up people were always looking out for talents like his, he’d been spotted early and pushed into it, probably before he was ready. Not that he told them much about the first years, before he was part of the organization they worked for.

Gabe never talked about how he ended up coming to North America, Tyson knew he’d come over young, but not why.  Maybe he talked about that stuff with Nate or EJ, but that wasn’t how him and Gabe were with each other.  They didn’t get serious with each other.

Tyson walked around, up and down the stairs, keeping an eye on the equipment. He probably wouldn’t sense anything if he wasn’t with Gabe or Nate anyway, but if he kept walking he wouldn’t be tempted to sit down, or nap.  His headache wasn’t getting much better either.

He finished up one more circuit and went to look for Nate, so they could point out the creepiest things in this place to each other. It was one of his favorite bits of a dull job like this, and there was some quality stuff to laugh at here.

As he headed through the parlour he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He sighed, he’d totally jinxed it by being bored.  Once he got to the door to the dining room he could hear voices talking softly, so he opened the door quietly.  Nate was telling someone the story of how he had got into the business.

Nate was sitting at the table with his back to the door and a steaming tea-cup in front of him. Next to him sat a lady with dark hair piled on top of her hair. If Tyson had ever asked for an embodiment of the word matronly she’d be it. Well, had been probably because she didn’t exactly have a body anymore. Whatever, she was totally matronly.

“Tys, come sit down.”

Tyson checked Nate had switched on the video, because sometimes he forgot. Even though it would probably only show Nate sipping from an empty cup alone in the room, the bosses still loved their video. He headed over to the table feeling the temperature drop as he got closer.  

“Mrs Margaret Tobin Brown, this is Tyson Barrie.” Nate introduced him like they were meeting for dinner with an ambassador.

The spirit turned her head to look at him. “You can call me Maggie, I guess if people can see me, I can afford to be friendly.”

It was always easier with people who knew they were dead. Spirits who didn’t could be difficult.

He shook her icy extended hand. Maggie looked a little surprised, and maybe he was meant to kiss it or something, old fashioned manners were not his thing.  Or maybe it was that her own hand was solid enough to for him to shake, Nate made a lot of things possible that usually weren’t.

Tyson took a seat at the table and Maggie stood to get another cup from the display cabinet behind her. Then passed him over a full cup of tea, steaming in the cold air.

“Please serve yourself milk and sugar. I never liked lemon with tea, I guess I was brought up too Irish for that.”

“Thank you.” Tyson didn’t like tea. But he added both milk and sugar to his cup anyway. It was never wise to piss spirits off for no good reason. Pretending to drink tea was much easier than dealing with shrieking, things being thrown, or hitting. He really did not dig the hitting.

He checked his tablet. The rooms they had set up were transmitting data, judging by the temperature readings Gabe was in the basement, but there was no activity in the rest of the house.

“I was telling Maggie about Halifax,” Nate said. When Tyson had come in it seemed like he had already told her about his first meeting with the little dripping boy who had followed him home from a class visit to Halifax, and finding Sid to help with him.

Tyson had heard the story plenty so he watched the readings, Nate had just finished telling her about find out the kid’s name and re-uniting him with his equally dead family when Gabe came through the door, tablet one hand and and zapper in the other.

“Of course they said it was DNA analysis that identified him..” Nate trailed off. Not that Maggie would know what DNA was anyway.

The patterns on the Maggie’s long, dark, dress became more detailed and Tyson could see the combs and pins holding her hair in place. It wasn’t just extra power from Gabe that made the difference, he paid attention to those details, whereas Nate was all about emotion.

“Mollie Brown, I presume?”

Nate shook his head frantically but the temperature in the room was already plummeting.

“The trouble with dying is, you can’t stop people doing what they want, like getting your name wrong, and opening your house up to strangers” She had a distinct frown now and the cups on the table were rattling lightly.

“My apologies, I am sorry if I offended you,” Gabe spoke more formally, like he often did to old time spirits. 

Maggie inclined her head to accept the apology, “My name is Margaret.  Please forgive me, it has been a long time since I welcomed guests to my home, rather than the horde that trample through daily.”

“Gabriel Landeskog, and I am sorry I should have known.” Gabe smiled his flashiest smile at her.

Maggie raised an eyebrow, “An interesting name.”

“It’s Swedish.” Gabe was still trying to be charming.

“There were a number of Swedish miners here, you know, when I was young. I always found they were a strange bunch, and not a one of them spoke English like you do.”  It was pretty obvious that she didn’t mean it as a compliment.

Gabe nodded, “Perhaps I will leave you to your tea, and check on the rest of the house.”

Tyson didn’t get why Maggie had taken against Gabe so quick, but he was glad Gabe wasn’t going to stick around, not if he annoyed her. Not getting spirits mad at them was one thing they all agreed on.

Maggie nodded to Gabe, “Be my guest. Not that my lack of permission stops anyone else.”

Gabe left the room and they could hear the stairs creak as he walked up them,

“They never used to do that, I think it must be all those darn school parties. Tramp, tramp tramp, all day long”

Maggie took a sip  of her tea and added, “When Jim first got his money, all of a sudden handsome young men started smiling at me like that, more than they ever had when I was a younger woman. You learn to tell a real smile quick.”

Tyson could track Gabe’s progress through the house on his tablet and he half listened to Nate telling Maggie about running around Halifax settling the spirits of the Titanic, and the explosion, with Jo.

Tyson had seen some of the reports, he knew that the two of them had been extremely successful - for kids.

“So you say they were drawn by their possessions and their remains. I never gave it much thought. I did what I could for the poor souls that survived- penniless most of them, but I never gave much thought to what became of the others. It was better not to dwell on it all.” She shook herself, “And that is why I am drawn here? Because my things are here?”

“Sometimes just having lived in a place for a long time is enough, if you were happy here,” Tyson said quietly. The reasons a spirit came to a place could be complicated, and it sometimes seemed pretty random. No one would chose to haunt a gas station like that guy in Montana.

“I was happy here, with Jim, at least for some of the time. Less so after he died. We had so many troubles then. And, of course, I  had seen the world, fine hotels and grand houses, so perhaps that was why I no longer loved this place as much.”

Her sadness pressed on Tyson like a wave, so he kicked Nate to break his focus, and the pressure eased.

“Jim was your husband, right? The smoker?” Tyson asked. He’d read about it, but it was kind of creepy to tell someone about their own life when they were sitting at a table with you.  And probably a bad idea to mention everyone knowing he cheated, it couldn’t be much fun having your business in the papers for everyone to read.

“That was one of his vices, yes, but he was a good man, mostly.  He put this house in my name when we separated.  I remember him best here.”

“You really don’t want them to do the conversion then?” he asked.

Maggie blinked at him in confusion.

 “Of the garret, I mean?”

Maggie frowned, “When I was alive I did not frequent the attic, I spent my time here, in my bedroom, the parlour, or the library, I like what they have done with them. So much better than when I had to turn the place into a boarding house. “ She shrugged, “Why would I care what they are doing in the attic?”

Tyson’s tablet beeped alerting them to a powerful surge of energy in the garret.  Tyson and Nate exchanged looks, they had both assumed that Maggie, with such a strong attachment to the house would have been the one stopping the work. But if it wasn’t her then Gabe was dealing with an unknown entity on his own. 

They raced for the stairs and pounded up the first flight and then across to the smaller set to the top floor.  Halfway up the narrow steps the blast of cold hit them. Along with the desire to go back, and get as far away as possible.

Tyson crashed through the door into the garret space first. Gabe was on his back on the floor with a slightly translucent girl straddling him. His T’shirt was torn, in a couple of places and one arm was ripped clean off. 

The ghost chick had one hand in Gabe’s hair holding him so she could try to kiss him. Gabe had one hand locked on her other wrist, trying to fend her away from the fly of his jeans, he was scrabbling on the floor for anything useful with the other. Through her head Tyson had a view of how little Gabe was enjoying himself.

Tyson fired his zapper at her. Shooting rock salt was deeply satisfying, but you couldn’t do that in a museum and a pulse of electrical energy worked just as well.

As the pulse hit her she dissipated like fog in the sun and Gabe grabbed a crow-bar of the floor as he rolled to his feet.

Nate crashed into the room behind him. 

The girl materialised part way through the wall, glanced between him and Gabe and spat “Like that is it?”

Gabe shouted ,”No. _”_ as he slapped the bar through her, the cold iron disrupted the energy, and she vanished again.

It stung more than he expected, hearing Gabe sound so horrified about the idea of there being something between them.  He’d never really thought he had a chance with Gabe, regardless of how much Gabe delighted in making him flustered and laughing at the dumb stuff he said. He just wasn’t ready to hear that much rejection.

Nate took a deep breath and then pointed as the girl reformed herself hanging from a beam in the middle of the roof space. Her discolored face explaining exactly how she had died. With both Nate and Gabe present Tyson could see the bright print of her short summer dress.

She opened her eyes and began to scream. Tyson zapped her again, partly just on reflex and partly because him and Gabe were going to have to talk about this at some point, which he was sure would really suck.

“Shooting spirits isn’t real helpful.” Nate snapped as the spirit slowly reformed in the same spot.

Tyson shrugged, if they couldn’t talk her into moving on then they could get Matt’s team in to perform an exorcism.  He really wasn’t feeling like he cared about this one. Nate’s problem was he cared about them all.

The shrieking was deafening. Tyson was tempted to shoot her again just to make it _stop_ and he could see Gabe’s hand tightening on the crow bar as he thought about it too.

Maggie rose through the floor and glared at the girl, “Stop that damnable racket this instant, young lady.”

The girl was so shocked that she stopped and floated in the air twisting slowly from side to side.

“Get down here, before you give us all a crick in our necks.”

Tyson cringed at someone saying that to a spirit who’d obviously died by hanging. But the girl drifted down to stand on the floor, still thankfully in silence.

For a long moment they stood staring at each other.

“What in the world happened to your clothes?” Maggie broke the silence first.

The girl looked down at the swirly psychedelic pattern of her dress as if looking for damage. “Nothing, this was my favourite dress. I was going on a date.”

Maggie looked at the girl’s outfit slowly.

Gabe was still looking pale, and Nate was looking at the beam and not the ghostly fashion discussion.

“It is the kind of thing girls wore in the 60’s,“ Tyson said with a shrug.

“You wore _this_ out in public?” Maggie asked.  When the girl nodded she smiled, “How simply marvellous.” She drifted closer to the girl and started to talk about her outfit.

Gabe straightened his shoulders and rested the crow-bar on the floor.

Nate came back from looking at the beam, and asked Gabe quietly, “1960-1970 was the home for delinquent girls, right?”

Gabe nodded, “Yeah, the clothing certainly fits the era.”

Tyson muttered quietly, “Seemed pretty delinquent to me when we got here.”

Nate frowned at him and Gabe suddenly seemed totally focused on examining the bleeding scratches on his wrist. Tyson wasn’t going to fill Nate in on what he’d missed seeing. 

Tyson stepped over to where the girl was playing with a giant ostrich feather fan that was apparently part of Maggie’s outfit.

“So, Miss, what do you have against construction work?”

The marks on the girl’s neck became visible again and her face swollen and discolored. Ok, maybe he should have been a bit more sympathetic. Nah, he couldn’t make himself be nice to grabby hands ghost.

“I died here, and no one remembers. No one cares. So they don’t get to disturb me, I’d rather be lonely.”

Maggie shrugged, “This was my house and they don’t even call me by my right name.”

“At least they remember you,” the girl bit back spitefully, “They are collecting all your things, right? Mine all went in the trash.”

Tyson sighed, he honestly tried to be good person, but there were limits on how much self pity he could handle from dead people.

Nate spoke up, “Well, tell me about yourself and we can make sure you are remembered.”

The girl threw the fan at him. It vanished as it got too far from Maggie. “They didn’t care when I died, said I killed myself, I didn’t.”

Tyson was mentally reducing the age he figured she was every time she spoke. He felt like he might get to negative figures if he kept listening.

Nate nodded, sympathetically, and stepped closer,“Tell me, and I can try and get it put right.”

Tyson thought he  sounded incredibly sincere and the girl seemed to be leaning towards him.  It was pretty doubtful the Denver Police Department would be in to a 50 year old murder, but the league would at least know who wouldn’t instantly dismiss information from a ghostly source. He’d seen Nate do this often enough with spirits that Tyson didn’t pay that much attention to their conversation just watched, keeping his zapper in hand - just in case.  The discoloration faded from her face as she talked to Nate and her make- up slowly reappeared.

Gabe was leaning against the wall, “You alright?" Tyson asked, cautiously, there were some pretty deep scratches. But he’d seen Gabe get thrown against walls and look less shaken.

“I’m fine. Just do your job.”

He didn’t sound fine, but Tyson wasn’t going to let anyone else get hurt on his watch so he stepped back toward the ghostly women clustered around Nate. They’d already been in contact with spirits for longer than he would like, it would be draining energy out of Nate and Gabe fast.

By the time the girl,  who apparently was called Mary, had got done talking he could see Nate’s hands were getting shaky.

Maggie looked round the attic, and turned to Nate, “So, I presume that you spent all the time telling me about putting spirits to rest as a prelude to offering me your services, and not as an exercise in vanity?”

Nate nodded, “Yes, ma’am. The whole go into the light treatment, peace, eternal rest, the full service. I can do that.”

Mary shook her head, “I don’t want to go. I’m not ready.”

Maggie gave her a  look. “You don’t want to spend eternity in an attic, especially not if the school trips are going to be coming up here. So much noise, I don’t know how children got so much louder, but they did. Besides it’s always better to have company on a trip.”

Mary looked around the room then nodded and put her arm in Maggie’s.

Maggie looked over at Gabe, “A person should be true to who they are and not try to be who they think people want them to be. It never works out. “

She looked round the room, “I never regretted it, marrying for love, not money. Money came, in the end, I doubt love ever would have, and even when love wasn’t enough, friendship and respect  endured.”

Tyson raised his eyebrows, she sure was a chatty ghost. Forget sometimes they come back, for them it was more like sometimes they don’t shut up. He got that it must be boring not to have anyone to talk to for however long it had been since she died, but seriously, she really needed to put a sock in it and just head into the light already.

“I don’t think it was my things or my attachment to the house that brought me here.” she threw back her head and bellowed, “Jim, get up here.”

In the distance Tyson heard a door slam and then heavy footsteps up the stairs. Through the garret door came a gentleman in full evening dress, wreathed in smoke.

“Jim, I told you not to do that in the house.”

Jim laughed, “How else do I get your attention.”

 Maggie smiled, softly, “You always had it. Come, take the last journey together we always intended.”

“Indeed.” Jim took Maggie’s other arm and they turned to face Nate.

“Young gentleman, now if you please.” Maggie ordered.

Tyson giggled at how much it sounded like she wanted him to get her a cab, earning him a glare from Gabe. Probably he was spoiling the solemn moment or whatever. Nate nodded, and for a moment the ghostly trio shone and then they were gone.

“I always think that should be more spectacular.” Tyson said as he caught Nate before he fell.

“That isn’t spectacular enough for you?” Gabe laughed

Nate opened his eyes, “He doesn’t see it, Gabe, and you know it.”

Tyson helped Nate over to sit against the wall, where Gabe was already sitting, seeming as drained as Nate.

Nate and Gabe had done their part and finally he got to do something, rather than just watch.

“I’ll be right back.”

He pounded down to the kitchen and picked up the flask of hot chocolate they had left ready, along with some snack size candy bars. They were the kind he liked, everyone else only seemed interested in the energy boost but they could at least enjoy getting the sugar down. If he left it to EJ he always brought the wrong ones.

Tyson cursed every creaking step back to the top of the house. Nate and Gabe had their shoulders pressed together and were speaking too quietly for him to hear. They broke off when he entered the room, he didn’t always understand the sighted stuff they talked about, but being excluded sucked.

He still poured them hot chocolate, trying not to spill it as Nate’s fingers shook holding his cup. Tyson pulled a flask out of his pocket and added some brandy to each cup.

Gabe held his hand out for the flask, “Can I get that?”

Tyson passed over the flask and watched Gabe swill his mouth out with brandy and spit it into the dusty corner of the garret.

“Bit of a waste, eh?” It had been pretty decent brandy, not the cheapest crap he could find.

Gabe shrugged. He let Tyson take the flask when he couldn’t get his fingers coordinated enough to put the top back on.

“EJ’s on the way back. I called him. Get him to take Nate to the hotel while he is still awake,” Gabe said.

Even with the hot chocolate and the candy Nate was crashing hard, completely drained by whatever it was he had done.

Tyson managed to get Nate down the stairs, helped by Gabe when the stairs became wide enough.  The bookies must have been close, as EJ arrived just as they reached the hallway and the hideous statues.

EJ looked at Gabe as he reached over to take Nate’s weight. “You coming too?”

Gabe shook his head, “I can help Tys with the gear.”

Tyson knew that tone in Gabe’s voice, and there was no point in trying to argue with him.

EJ sighed and wriggled his jacket off, “Try not to bleed on it too much, eh?” He handed the jacket over to Gabe and took Nate’s weight off Tyson. EJ made it look easy as he headed out the door with Nate.

Gabe had slumped down again, sitting on the bottom step, leaning his head on the newel post.

“You think that Nate will still be awake when they get to the hotel?” Tyson asked him. He didn’t like how distracted Gabe looked. He thought maybe he would have been better off sorting the gear alone.

Gabe blinked, paused, and then answered “Given the shitty traffic in this city - no. But EJ can deal with that” the “He’s had plenty of practise” unspoken between them.

EJ’S jacket was still folded on his lap, and he was still way too pale for Tyson’s liking.

Tyson sat next to him and opened a packet of Kleenex to dab at the scratches on Gabe’s shoulders. He pulled out the flask, but Gabe stopped him before he could pour it on them.

“Don’t bother, I’d rather drink it.”

Tyson knew that the odds on a scratch from a spirit getting infected were pretty low, he even knew the science of why, but he didn’t care. They’d screwed up and Gabe had got hurt. It wasn’t as bad as St Paul, when Gabe had needed to drag him out of the burning warehouse because his knee was wrecked, but it still wasn’t a good day.

Doing something would have made him feel better, even if it wasn’t important to Gabe’s health.

“Guess I’m driving then?” he tried to joke. It fell flat but it meant they didn’t have to talk as he took the flask back to open it for Gabe.

Tyson wished he could go back to the hotel and fall asleep, but the museum needed to open the next day and their gear needed to be removed.

He took the flask off Gabe, before he emptied it, and took a sip before he closed it. EJ needed to stay with Nate, so this was on him, though he doubted Gabe would agree to just stay put.

“Ok, I’ll start upstairs and you start in the library, yeah?”

Gabe nodded and got up to his feet, Tyson wanted to offer him a hand but as the sugar reenergized Gabe the exhaustion washed away and he knew Gabe well enough to tell he was pissed, despite his bland smile.  Much like he wouldn’t agitate a spirit, he was trying not to give Gabe a reason get snipy.

 

***

 

Tyson  already hated the staircase, but by the time he had brought all the equipment down he was about ready to torch it. People shouldn’t build dark wood creepy looming stairs like that and then be surprised that they ended up haunting the house.  

He hadn’t seen Gabe in his trips down, but the pile of gear kept getting bigger so he knew he was still working.  Tyson took another handful of chocolate before he went looking for Gabe, after all he had to keep his energy up.  They still had to load up the van, and the hotel was way further away than he’d like.

He tracked Gabe down to the library where he was sitting on one of the chairs with a cat in his arms.  

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tyson snapped as he shooed the cat away from Gabe. It vanished before it hit the floor.

Gabe jumped back to his feet and caught himself on the arm of the chair as he nearly fell. “Why did you do that?”

“Did you get a death wish all of a sudden, like you’re already as drained as hell. So why did snuggling with a ghostly kittie seem like a good idea?“ Tyson knew he was yelling and getting in Gabe’s face like this when he was pissed was probably a bad idea, but he just could deal with Gabe being this stupid. “If you black-out there is no way I can get you out of here on my own. You want me to have to call EJ, and leave Nate on his own?”

Gabe stepped closer to Tyson and he was reminded of just how big he was, Gabe didn’t try to use his size like this most of the time. But Tyson wasn’t backing down, Nate couldn’t fend off a fly right now, and the idea of EJ having to leave him alone because Gabe was being an idiot was making him crazy.

Tyson didn’t think Gabe would actually hit him. But he wasn’t expecting Gabe’s hand to curl round the side of his face, turning his head and he really didn’t expect to feel Gabe’s lips pressed against his. For a moment he froze and then he leaned into Gabe, and the kiss.

Tyson wrapped his arm round Gabe’s shoulder. Damn he was a great kisser, it was a shame he had to stop him. He poured the holy water from the vial he had snuck out of his pocket onto Gabe’s forehead and stepped back.

There wasn’t any steam rising off of Gabe and he wasn’t tearing at his face. He was just standing there, blinking in confusion as the water dripped down onto the floor. Tyson wished he had a camera to save that look forever.

Gabe shook his head and started to laugh. “What the fuck?” He pulled the bottom of his ripped up T-shirt up to dry his face. Tyson really tried not to stare at his abs, but he failed. He couldn’t help being weak.

“Come on, you got smooched by Little Miss Grabby Hands, and then all of a sudden you kiss me out of the blue. Possession wasn’t a shitty guess.”

Gabe was laughing so hard that he dropped back into the chair. His hand caught Tyson’s wrist and he let himself get pulled closer and closer until the easiest thing to do was sit on Gabe’s knee.  It was a bad idea, and he knew it, but half his life had been a series of bad ideas followed by worse ones.  No reason not to enjoy the moment.

“Out of the blue? Damn, I thought I’d been pretty obvious, about wanting to kiss you. I'm sure I've straight up told you so on multiple occasions.”

Gabe was too close and his eyes were too blue and Tyson wanted to run. Just drive away, and never come back. He could feel his face burning with embarrassment.

“You fake flirt with everything and everyone, Gabriel.  I am not dumb enough to let it make me feel special.” Gabe’s hand was still on his wrist so pulling away would be this whole dramatic thing.  “What you said upstairs to ghost girl felt a lot more like the truth.”

Gabe had stopped laughing and he was staring so intently, with that little cringle on his forehead.  Just like the one he got when he was trying to read a map.  Tyson wanted to look away. But he couldn’t seem to make his head move, or his feet. He just needed to put them on the floor and step back.  They could probably pretend this never happened. Or maybe he could get himself reassigned somewhere far, far away, like Antarctica or the moon.

He really shouldn’t just sit there and let Gabe touch his face, so gently it hurt.

“Sorry.” he’d never heard Gabe speak so softly. “It’s not always a one way street, sometimes they pick up feelings from us, not just us picking up on their energy. I didn’t want her to decide to hurt you out of some kind of jealousy.”

Tyson knew he was totally fucked, there was no way this could get swept back under the rug and there weren’t enough cold showers in the universe to suppress this feeling. He leaned forward to kiss Gabe, because at least then he’d have a reason to close his eyes and stop seeing the way Gabe was looking at him.

He could feel Gabe’s heart beating so close to his own  and with his eyes closed he found he could ask, “So, you’re saying she would have had a reason to be jealous?” His voice cracked with uncertainty, and he hated it.

Tyson felt more than heard Gabe’s soft “Yeah,” against his lips. His forehead was getting wet from the holy water on Gabe’s face but he still couldn’t quite believe this was actually happening.

“I might need some convincing.” He felt exposed showing even that much of his real feelings.

Gabe kissed him again. “I can do that.”


End file.
